Insight
by Elessar King
Summary: He had been standing there watching for a very long time... Fic for 25crimes, keyword: Watch


Another shortstory written for 25crimes under the prompt "Watch".

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Insight

Anyone who was settled in their work was undoubtly good at their job - with a few exceptions of those who just slipped by. But it was rare to see someone at work who was entirely suited to their job in every way, shape and form...such as Bobby Goren. Someone with mastery of their profession only came in handfuls, spread out over the population. Ron Carver himself had graduated in the top percentage of his class in law school. He was a highly intelligent man and an extremely talented lawyer. But his skill with the law was sometimes still lost next to the way that Goren could break someone down, or see through to the end of the most complex investigations. When Goren was at a dead end, it meant something very significant. However, the term of a dead end was only used by the outsider looking in, because it was truly impossible to tell.

Bobby stood in the darkened observation room, watching through the glass at the man sitting at the table. The tall detective's hands were clasped behind his back, and he had been standing there watching for a very long time. Carver paced a few steps behind him before stopping and folding his arms. He glanced from the Captain, to the partner, to Goren again. When he had first been assigned to Major Case, Carver would have been much more impatient with this sort of behavior. But after his years here, he had learned - as had everyone else - to respect Goren's calls.

If he said that he could get a confession, he could. If he said that the perp was going to be an attention seeker who had never made it off the bottom, it would be. If he said that the man in the grey-walled interrogation room needed a few more minutes...why would they not trust him? Anyone else, Carver wasn't so sure that he would go along with them for this long, but Bobby Goren brought results.

It often made him wonder about the man himself, what made him be able to see into a person and pick out their weaknesses. Carver could do some on his own, which was part of his job also, but Goren had a specific talent for it. The information he knew... he was like a walking dictionary. And what held it all together? What made it unable for anyone else to see into him. That was a large part of the mystery. A part which no one else would ever know, nor were they meant to. What ever secrets lie beneath and stared back in the slightest reflection of the glass...Ron Carver would never know.

But Alex Eames did. She had seen into her partner's head... she had seen the patterns and the elements that made him able to be who he is. She had heard what came during the darkness... the nightmares, the memories. Some of it, she had figured out. There was nothing simple about it - after five years, she understood things that no one else did. Other things Alex had listen to in a rare, fragile moment that would never repeat itself again.

When they were first partnered, she saw something different about him, and though it took her awhile to realize that just because Bobby was so secluded did not mean that he was impossible...just that he required a different approach. Then she began to understand why he was so radically different to begin with. When she gained his trust, she knew, and then she saw what no one else did. Through his eyes was an entirely different world, shaded by many things. His schizophrenic mother. His indifferent father. His hateful brother. Then there was Bobby.

The quiet moments like these, she could see everything at work, and it all mixed together perfectly. Everything he had researched and read, his passion for knowledge, when it only began as a quest to understand why his mother heard voices that weren't there. It brought him further than just that - it brought him here. Alex understood what no one else would ever see. And in the blink of an eye, the moment was over: because that was all it took in Bobby Goren's world.

Captain Deakins shifted from one foot to the other as he stood leaning against the table with one hand, the other planted on his hip. Just like the rest of them, he only watched. But after a moment, he cleared his throat, "..Goren?"

Bobby didn't turn, but he tilted his head to the side. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he watched as the man in the interrogation room began to crack his knuckles. A small smile glanced over Goren's face and he turned to look at the other three. "I think..I think he's ready for a confession now."


End file.
